Frequently Asked Questions

What resolution or DPI do I need?

Raster Art

Raster art is made out of pixels, which are little square dots of colour stacked together side by side. For raster art I measure image resolution by pixel size across the longest dimension.  4000 to 6000 pixels across the longest dimension is a good range of high resolution for most book oriented art.

3000 pixels is ok, though starting to get into a range that will pixelate at a large size print.  Would be fine for web, video, or other screen media though.

DPI refers to print resolution.  It's the number of dots per inch across your printed material.  I suggest just get high-resolution images and let your graphic designer manage the dpi for printing.

Handheld printed materials you want about 240-300dpi at the size it will be printed.

Posters, tradeshow banners, things people will be viewing from a distance because it's big, 100-200dpi.

Video or screens for web size generally show pictures at 72dpi.

Vector Art

Vector art is not measured by DPI. It’s essentially infinite resolution because it creates shapes and colour changes with mathematical curves. No matter how close you zoom in on that mathematical curve, it’s always sharp and smooth, never pixelated.